Second-grade students at Willard Elementary School in Pasadena were elated to receive a response from Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court after reaching out to her with letters of curiosity and original artwork. Justice Sotomayor took the time to personally address the students’ inquiries and offered encouragement to motivate them in their academic journey. In her letter to the secon... More »
In January 2004, twin NASA rovers named Spirit and Opportunity touched down on opposite sides of Mars, kicking off a new era of interplanetary robotic exploration. They arrived in dramatic fashion three weeks apart, each nestled in a cluster of airbags that bounced along the surface around 30 times before coming to a stop and deflating. The golf cart-size rovers’ mission: to look for evidence that... More »
NASA’s Deep Space Network marks its 60th year on Dec. 24. In continuous operations since 1963, the DSN is what makes it possible for NASA to communicate with spacecraft at or beyond the Moon. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory here in Pasadena, the DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from over over millions of miles away. The dazzling galactic imag... More »
NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity, engineered under the stewardship of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, landed on the Red Planet on the Perseverance rover in February 2021. On April 19 that year, Ingenuity, also called the “Marscopter,” became the first aircraft to perform a powered, controlled flight on a world beyond Earth. Now, a prototype of this pioneering aerial marvel, also conceiv... More »
Marking its 1,000th Martian day on the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently completed its exploration of the ancient river delta that holds evidence of a lake that filled Jezero Crater billions of years ago. The six-wheeled scientist has to date collected a total of 23 samples, revealing the geologic history of this region of Mars in the process. One sample called “Lefroy Bay” contains a... More »
This video combines two perspectives of the 59th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Video on the left was captured by the Mastcam-Z on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover; the black-and-white video on the right was taken by Ingenuity’s downward-pointing Navcam. The flight occurred Sept 16. [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS] NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is making history by tes... More »
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced a two-week pause, from November 11 to 25, in sending commands to its Mars fleet due to the Mars solar conjunction. This phenomenon, which occurs every two years when Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the Sun, could potentially corrupt radio signals sent from Earth due to hot, ionized gas expelled from the Sun’s corona. Despite the pause, JPL’s r... More »
On Thursday, Nov. 9, we honored our student, faculty, and staff veterans at Pasadena City College and all who have served in the military during a wonderful Veterans Day ceremony hosted by the Veterans Club and the Veterans Resource Center at the Memorial Wall on our campus. On Friday, we will close the college in observance of Veterans Day. As we commemorate this holiday, it is an important mome... More »
In the heart of the Arroyo, a remarkable initiative is creating ripples, not just in the pool, but also in the lives of individuals with diverse needs. The Rose Bowl Aquatics Center (RBAC), a nonprofit organization, is the proud home of the Rays Swim Team. This inclusive swim team is redefining the boundaries of team sports. The Rays Swim Team strives to provide a nurturing space where children an... More »
A computer pilot helps NASA’s six-wheeled geologist as it searches for rock samples that could be brought to Earth for deeper investigation. In about a third of the time it would have taken other NASA Mars rovers, Perseverance recently navigated its way through a field of boulders more than 1,700 feet wide (about a half-kilometer). While planners map out the rover’s general routes, Perseverance ma... More »
